Press Conscience
Over past many years the daring form of investigative reporting has always been appreciated by the social structure and awarded by anyone possible. The likes of Goenka and Mark Tully are now a rare species. What is left of the press now is “News in the fast food” fashion, presented in the best possible packaging available, and dramatized to the extent of putting the movies of 1960s to shame. The news channels are now probably seeking actors and greenhorn graduates rather than actual graduates with some sense of repsonsibility and knowledge. The reporters are now merely doing the job of selling the news rather than reporting the news. It is too great a responsibility to keep the people informed. But I believe the press and the news channels are probably missing the point totally. For them, it is just what sells.
When a Uma Khurana is dragged on to the road and beaten up by the mob, only to be vindicated later on after enough hullabaloo, when a news channel shows or should I say “covers” and “exclusive” report of a father being beaten up in his house, I am compelled to think that once you wear a “PRESS” tag on your chest, are you no longer a citizen? Are you no longer a human being? Do you no longer have a conscience of your own? If an innocent person is being beaten up in public, is there no signal or response that your brains sends you that you should somehow be protecting the person?
All that is left at the end of all this fury is the dust which takes little time to settle down. 12 hours of prime time, mud-slinging amongst politicians, but what about the reporter and the camera man who saw it all happenning in front of their eyes and stood like heartless piece of flesh? Is this not the responsibility of the reporter to take measures to stop such an anti-social act from happenning? Is it only the task of the common citizens?
One of the news channels recently showed that a man was dragged after being tied to the rear of a motorcycle by a policeman. The host of the show kept on saying “Aur log chupchaap khade tamasha dekhte rahe. Koi is aadmi ki madad ko aage nahin aaya”. Has he forgotten that there were people from his own news channel who were standing there and getting an exclusive coverage of the entire mishap? Does he think that by simply covering the event, his responsibility to protect ends? If the channel feels so sympathetic towards the poor soul, why doesn't he go up and stop the mob or the miscreant from doing any such act? Do they not have enough balls? If they don't, they have no right to say that the people kept standing there as mute spectators, because so were they.
Why is so that everybody is put under scanner for their wrong deeds, but never the media? Why is it so that whenever a finger is raised over the media, it doesn't even attain much heights to bring about the change. Have we handed over the entire onus of reporting and reforming into the hands of the media who are now showing us a world which they want to show. Is there something, someone, who can come up to unravel this face of the modern Indian press and media? Probably, your conscience should now “Press” hard.
